


fix you

by iwrotethisat3am



Series: and the force is with me [1]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Zygerria Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:35:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25464085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwrotethisat3am/pseuds/iwrotethisat3am
Summary: No one has caught so much as a glimpse of the Commander for weeks, except for her Master, the medics, and the Captain. No one knows what’s wrong — just that she’s sick. The higher-ups won’t say how.
Relationships: CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives/Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano
Series: and the force is with me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117898
Comments: 16
Kudos: 124





	fix you

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to SilverWinter08’s work “breathe” for the idea of Fives being the five-oh-first’s resident sparrer as well as a little in love with Ahsoka. their work is absolutely amazing and their profile should absolutely be checked out!

  
high up above ***

The Commander has been out of commission for a few weeks. This happens to everyone (except General Skywalker, of course) at some time or another — bad injuries take time to recover from.

The clone’s preferred method of recovery, and indeed the Commander’s, involves as much social interaction as possible. If not a source of comfort, the interaction at least serves as a suitable alternative to the boredom that inherently comes with a stint in the medbay. 

Yet no one has caught so much as a glimpse of the Commander for weeks. No one, except for her Master, the medics, and the Captain.

 _Everything can be traced back to that stupid little blue outfit Anakin picked out. To be fair, he gave her a selection of outfits — and the blue one was hardly the most revealing one among them; and to be fair, she has a history of preferring revealing clothing. But she is trying to change that, trying her hardest, and it isn’t just because it has at last dawned on her that a tube top doesn’t serve as the most practical sort of armor on a battlefield — no, it’s more because, well, because she woke up one day and realized that the lingering gazes of untrustworthy clones, of ratty Coruscant civilians, of less-than-courteous senators — that they have a . . . a . . . less-than-friendly intent, raking over her form in a way that makes her feel smaller than small, but also much too big . . ._

_It complements your eyes, Anakin snarked at her at the time, referring to the vivid blue of the slave dress._

_She slipped it on, and descended to Zyggeria with the others. She can still vividly recall the puffy, elegantly twisty formations of the golden clouds, ringing the path of the ship as it sank through the atmosphere._

or down below ***

Her men worry about her. 

So do the officers. That much is clear. 

Tup and Jesse discuss the matter in low voices over the evening dejarik tournament. Denal pull ranks on Kix in a useless attempt for answers. Fives takes his furied concern out on a hapless line of sparring opponents, then, fruitlessly, turns to Captain Rex as a solution to his desperation.

But the Captain keeps his mouth screwed shut.

“ _Osik_ ,” Fives curses Rex’s resistance.

“Watch your tongue,” the superior officer all but snarls.

The aggression is unexpected, but it’s how Fives feels, too, and witnessing it from Rex only fuels Fives’s certainty that something is wrong. Plus, Fives can see the exhaustion and — is that — that —

Fives won’t say _what_ it is exactly, but it looks an awful lot like _dread_ that is written starkly into every line of the Captain’s bearing as the Captain pivots on the spot and marches, stiffly, away.

Kix and Coric still won’t say a word, and none of the clones are fool enough to plug the General with their questions. Especially because bags have appeared under Skywalker’s eyes that weren’t there just a week ago.

_The market is enormous, festive, and startlingly beautiful to Ahsoka’s eyes. She can hardly believe that such grandeur has come from so much evil. It makes her feel sick to her stomach._

_So Ahsoka intervenes. When the Zygerrian’s whip spirals toward the beleaguered Twi’lek: Ahsoka stops the whip. When Queen Miraj calls her_ fine stock _and runs a critically admiring finger under Ahsoka’s chin: Ahsoka repels the Queen’s touch and what it stands for. When Anakin shoots off his cocky two-fingered salute: Ahsoka fends off the slaver officers and goes after the Queen herself._

_When the Zygerrians bind her wrists and ankles: Ahsoka summons the Force and feels its blinding energy surge like ice through her veins, and redirects it at her enemies in a stunning show of strength. They go flying. When the Zygerrians subdue her with electric shocks: Ahsoka snarls a single curse to herself and then adopts Jedi calm, wearing it like a protective blanket over her bare, bruised skin._

_When the Zygerrians come at her — when Atai Molec comes at her, brandishing his weapons and wearing that less-than-friendly intent in his eyes that she recognizes from the greedy, discourteous senators and civilians: Ahsoka pulls that Jedi calm around her more tightly, as if it can possibly serve as an armor. The undisciplined part of her insists that it can_ not _. In the case that strength of mind cannot help her, she will fight back, she tells the undisciplined corner of her head._

_But the electric shocks continue, and the undisciplined part grows and grows like wildfire; she cannot fight back; she is dry grass and Atai is fire spreading over her._

too in love to let it go ***

After sending Swoop to the infirmary nursing a black eye, Jesse finally decides to speak up.

Fives stands upon the sparring mat, victorious — except he doesn’t look it. He is glowering, his jaw set, tension coming off him in hot waves.

“ _Vod_ ,” Jesse begins, carefully keeping his voice neutral. “Let’s talk about what’s bothering you, shall we? Before you cripple any more of us.”

Jesse knows what’s up, of course. He’s plagued by some of the same feelings as Fives. The two hatch a plan and rope an innocent Tup into it, too, ‘cause it’s a bit of a _stretch_ for Kix or Coric to believe that Fives could roundly defeat Jesse — but Tup is still part-shiny, and would probably lose to an ARC in under a minute. 

Tup’s dignity is halfway damaged by this claim, but nonetheless, he readily agrees to the plan. He follows poor Swoop’s path to the medbay and tells Coric, who’s on duty, that his hand was injured in a match with Fives. He holds his hand out awkwardly in front of him just to spice things up.

Fives and Jesse, huddled over a security camera feedback in the tech room, mentally applaud Tup’s acting skills . . . never having seen any better.

Luckily fo them, Coric hasn’t either. He assigns Tup a bunk to wait on and steps out of the room to finish handling Swoop. Tup immediately throws the security camera a salute and walks over to the medbay computer. He gets past the first few codes easily enough, thanks to Fives’s security clearance and Jesse’s strong friendship with Kix . . . but he can’t get any further into Commander Tano’s file.

 _Insufficient permissions,_ the holo relays. 

Fives clicks his fingertips against the desk and begins to transmit more codes, any codes, to Tup, who looks at the incoming comms in alarm and begins to type frantically. Meanwhile, a startled Jesse places a hand on Fives’s shoulder, silently urging his brother back into awareness.

“Let it go. This must be more serious than we imagine. Than we can help. The medics have got her taken care of.”

At his words, Fives eases off.

Coric reenters the medbay moment later, and after a brief inspection proceeds to tear Tup a new one for faking an injury. Meanwhile, Fives tears into himself for being so desperate — but also for giving up so easily.

_Ahsoka received lessons on these sensitive matters during her time at the Temple. Some of them she even received from Master Shaak Ti herself. The venerable Master is the only other Togruta in the Order._

_The information Master Ti gives her makes Ahsoka flush at first. With time and maturity, her embarassment fades into clinical neutrality. This, after all, is the attitude Master Ti transmits about the subject._

_It is_ not _the attitude that Master Skywalker transmits. Nor is it the attitude that Master Kenobi transmits. Both of them seem more involved with this subject than Ahsoka could have predicted. As it turns out, however, neither of them are . . . involved enough . . ._

tears streaming ***

Rex leaves his meals one-quarter-finished these days, which means his daily rations are cut in half _again_ since the first time he’d cut them in half, during the ugliest days of Umbara. Those days Hardcase had been happy enough to finish the leftovers, citing his especially jacked-up metabolism. However, Hardcase exists only in a grave and his brothers’ memories now. 

So the rations go straight to waste . . . in a mess hall full of hungry soldiers. No one has been feeling very hungry lately.

Rex abdicates the mess hall in favor of an empty hallway. His plastoid boots click sharply where they meet the steel floor. He angles for his office, like usual, but when he is sure that no one is around, no one can see him, he swiftly redirects towards the Commander’s quarters.

After a gentle comm to ensure his visit is welcome, and the inputting of a code, her door slides open for him. Without hesitation, he steps through. The General is already there, and so is Kix.

Tup, rounding the corner, sees the latter two exit, speaking in hushed voices. They clam up when they see Tup.

They’re both _very_ bad at lying.

It does not escape Tup’s notice that the visitor light is still blinking on the door access panel. Someone is still with the Commander. 

Later, he, Fives, and Jesse manage to link Rex’s unfinished meals and early exits to the Commander’s constant company.

_Her Master tells her, with extreme worry poorly hidden in his voice, to not shut herself off from the Force. He wants her to keep her mind open and clear. He says that he keeps trying to reach out to her, but her mental walls are too thick and cloudy for him to pierce._

_She certainly feels like a storm right now._

_Coric was the first one to notice that something is off. He went to the medical archives first, then to Kix, before presenting his theory to the tired and sick Ahsoka that had come knocking on the medbay door. Ahsoka had received his theory with the same detachment she’d tried to show Atai, but, like with Atai, fell apart at the seams as panic threatened to break her._

_Coric and Kix were horrified when they finally heard her full account of what had happened on Zygerria’s surface. Skywalker and Rex were both called in — Skywalker because he was Ahsoka’s Master, and Rex as a matter of course — and Skywalker listened to the sick and sorry tale with admirable self-control as he attempted to support his Padawan —_

_He shattered all the glass in his quarters with his mind later that evening._

_Rex had never connected such evil and ugliness with the bright and pure Togruta in front of him, and thinking of it made his blood boil. He calmed himself for her sake and went toward her after just a moment’s thought._

_When she shuts herself off from the Force in the days that follow — when she endures excruciatingly awkward and horrible calls from Master Ti and Master Yoda — when her body rapidly undergoes physical changes — side-effects that Ahsoka and Kix and Coric, all of them utterly naive in things like this, had forgotten to anticipate — when she needs meals brought to her, when she is sick, when she needs an ear, when she needs a hand to hold during medical procedures — Rex is . . ._

_Rex is there, the whole time._

_Skywalker notices, raises an eyebrow at it, but then he thanks the gods of Mortis that his Captain is so unswervingly loyal to his Padawan because Anakin doesn’t know if he can even trust himself to help her the way she needs right now._

_He thanks the gods of Mortis that his Captain is so unswervingly loyal to his Padawan because Anakin is unable to stop himself from drowning in the defeat of Ahsoka’s blue eyes._

lights will guide you home ***

A month has slipped by. Not hide nor hair of the Commander have been seen by any of the men except for Rex, Coric, and Kix.

Jesse is pretty sure that he knows what’s wrong with Fives. It’s easy to put two and two together, and he’s never seen such a display of loyalty and concern from any of his brothers before, save Rex, but in Rex’s case . . . well, _that_ is an understood thing, that is. In hindsight, Fives’s case seems pretty obvious, too. 

It breaks Jesse’s heart for his brother. His heart’s been broken before — when Hardcase died, when his brothers lined up to execute him — but this is a new kind of heartbroken to add to his experience.

Jesse realizes, dimly, that he’s growing up. 

Rex and Fives have been interacting with painstaking precision in the wake of Fives’s too-blatant snooping. The Captain, of course, will protect the Commander and her privacy at any cost, while the ARC had only wanted to be there for her. Their goals _technically_ align, but neither of them see that. 

Rex then proceeds to go missing for a few days. Coric, as Torrent sergeant, fields all his calls. Kix spends the majority of his time hovering through the corridors between the medbay and Commander Tano’s quarters, looking unnaturally somber.

_Ahsoka did not realize what was happening until too late. How could she have? She’s a soldier. A student of war. She does not know her own body, nor the finer, more private things of life. She is a stranger to desire and gentle love and the sweetest things of the heart._

_(She doesn’t think these thoughts herself, of course. She doesn’t know to. Anakin thinks them for her, and his heart breaks and breaks, breaks, breaks.)_

_She only notes pain, scars, distension, throwing up, dizziness, hunger, distension, hunger, a shift of her moods, the absence of the Force in favor of anger swinging rapidly to sorrow to hunger again, and she can’t fit in her uniform nor can she balance confidently enough to be considered fit to wield a lightsaber._

_Anakin notes these things. Kix and Coric do as well. Unlike Ahsoka, all of them immediately understand what these things signify. Rex is filled in. He starts to bring her all her meals and treatment supplies, at the medics’ request and her desire._

_At her invitation, one day when her spirits are low and she is seeking to reconcile the news with what she has to do about it but for some bitter twisted reason she can’t quite make herself_ do _yet . . ._

_Rex sets her midday meal aside and places a hand on her rounding stomach. It’s tiny, and seems harmless, but the thought that evil’s leftovers are contained therein make him shrink. However, he doesn’t want to alarm her or make her feel worse than she does already. He remains still and fumbles for words._

_Suddenly, she grips his hand, tight as a vice._

_His eyes shift to meet hers. Golden-brown meets blue. He is afloat in her storm. Has been for some time now. For her part, she finally sees sunlight through the clouds._

_She has gripped his hand, tight as a vice. She asks him to stay with her. He knows what the request implies. After taking a mental moment to commit himself, he says_ of course, Commander.

_Per the medics’ recommendation, Ahsoka is put through surgery as soon as possible. When she wakes up from the anesthesia, she physically feels — mostly — well again, and Rex and Anakin are by her side, along with Kix, who is extremely relieved that things are getting back to normal._

and i will try ***

She sneaks out to the sparring mat at night. Anakin had tried to place her on bed rest, and Kix had agreed, but Coric had insisted that she get back into the swing of things as soon as possible. 

So while it was two against one and _technically_ Ahsoka was supposed to be in her quarters, the gym is empty and tempting, and she feels a lot like punching her demons into submission. She finds a target and drops into her fighting stance.

Fives — on the same brand of mission as Ahsoka — comes across her there. 

He is joyful to see that she’s up and about, but carefully restrained all the same. She’s too distracted and awkward to notice the difference in his behavior towards her. They spar for a bit, but Ahsoka’s weary, and she needs Fives’s help to make it safely back to her room.

_Wartime is merciless. So was Atai. So is the young life growing inside her. So are the medics, and Anakin, insisting it be put to death. Ahsoka considers and reconsiders, although she knows it’s a purely hypothetical debate. It’s got to go._

_Rex listens and comforts. Without him, she would have fallen apart a long time ago — completely alone. She’ll have to learn how to stand without him soon, but right now she can’t contemplate doing so._

to fix you ***

Ahsoka appears before the men at a briefing. It’s as if nothing happened at all. They’re knocking out a Seppie holdout on a planet where the war was largely decided in the Republic’s favor weeks ago. It’s a blue-milk run if there ever was one, and after this, they’re off to Coruscant for leave.

Ahsoka will be taking point. Obviously, the mission is supposed to ease her back into fighting and leading the men. 

No one dares to say as much.

Everyone wants things to be okay again. They’re on Ahsoka’s side. They don’t want to speak up at her even when she makes a key strategic mistake. They don’t voice criticisms when the mission goes awry, although Skywalker’s squad has to intervene to make sure no one gets hurt. 

And no one, no one at all says anything when Rex has to lead the Commander off the battlefield, her arm over his shoulders, his hand wrapped around her waist protectively, her gasping for breath and him speaking to her quickly and softly. 

A Zygerrian helm is nailed into a place of honor on the holdout wall. Jesse pulverizes it with a blaster bolt. 

Ahsoka shows up in front of the men again the next day — casually walking by the mess with Rex, then joining the pilots at their table, then visiting her squad, chitchatting, mingling with everyone — again, like nothing has happened at all.

When she leaves after finishing half her meal, Rex abandons his three-quarters and accompanies her out. 

Fives has a long talk with Ahsoka on the sparring mat that night. After returning to his bunk, he forgives the Captain’s reticence, and adds a symbolic casualty to his list. It’s just one more. He’s a soldier. He can take it.

So can the rest of them.

It’s wartime. Whatever happened doesn’t, _can’t_ , matter at all.

**Author's Note:**

> like, i get that The Clone Wars is ostensibly a kid’s show, and that the writers only have 20-minute installments to work with, but Ahsoka is a child soldier. So are the clones, technically — but Ahsoka is really, truly, a child, and Anakin dresses her in an extremely revealing outfit and lets her be imprisoned by dangerous and absolutely morally corrupt slavers. like, what?
> 
> i can forgive the writers ignoring potential seediness and everyday sexual harassment that Jedi like Ahsoka and Aayla would likely face, and i truly do enjoy the Zygerrian arc and the questions it poses, but i can’t believe that Anakin would literally dress up his little Padawan like that and commit her to the hands of evil.
> 
> this work is meant to explore that — it explores how everything, unfortunately, is acceptable in the cursed concept of war, as well as the good and bad and inevitable consequences of that.


End file.
